Femi Adesina, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, has said the administration of his principal, President Muhammadu Buhari, acted quickly during Dapchi and Kankara abductions while the government of former President Goodluck Jonathan was tardy in its response to Chibok abduction.
Adesina stated this in a piece on Friday titled, ‘Enemies Of The Country Will Lose Las Las’.
In the piece, Adesina compared the response of the two governments to the three major mass abduction of students that have rocked Nigeria.
Gunmen on motorcycles had abducted over 300 schoolboys from Government Science Secondary School, Kankara, Katsina State. The incident occurred on December 11, 2020, the same day Buhari visited his home state for a week-long private visit. The schoolboys eventually regained freedom after six days in captivity.
The Kankara students’ abduction is not the first in the history of the nation. Non-state actors had in the past abducted hundreds of secondary school girls from Chibok, in Borno State; and Dapchi in Yobe State. Some of them eventually regained freedom while a number of them including Leah Sharibu are still detained in the enclaves of their abductors and sexual abusers.
While the Kankara (December 2020) and Dapchi (February 2018) abductions occurred during the Buhari regime, the Chibok abduction (April 2014) happened during the Jonathan administration.
Making comparison, the president’s aide wrote, “Now, while there are similitudes between Chibok, Dapchi, and Kankara, the significant difference is the response by the different governments in power. When Chibok occurred, the then Goodluck Jonathan-led government demurred. They balked. They said no abduction happened, and that it was an attempt at negative propaganda by the then party in opposition, the All Progressives Congress, to get power.
“By the time government wisened up, the abductors had gone far, and the trail was cold. They couldn’t recover the girls, not until the Buhari government came a year later, and a large chunk of the hapless abductees were brought back. Some are still unaccounted for till today.”
Adesina further stated, “When Dapchi happened some years later, the Buhari government behaved differently. It swung into action, went after the abductors, and through a combination of deft factors, the girls were brought back. Except Leah Sharibu.
“With Kankara on our hands, despite the strident cacophony of the market, President Buhari kept his cool, and went to work. And the needful was done. The boys were recovered after about six days in captivity.”
He lambasted the #BringBackOurBoys campaigners, who according to him, suddenly went underground after the release of the Kankara boys.
Adesina said while Kankara boys were still in captivity, the campaigners had printed ten million T-Shirts and were warming up for a mass protest to remove the All Progressives Congress from power.
“If #Bring Back Our Girls brought down a People’s Democratic Party government, then #Bring Back our Boys must also undo the APC government,” he wrote, adding that the #BringBackOurBoys campaigners “lost their voices particularly on social media” when the boys were released.
“They vanished after the boys were released. But instead of admitting final defeat, instead of throwing up their hands in surrender, saying that this government was smarter than they thought, they became like Janus, the mythical creature with two faces, and began to speak from two different mouths,” he added.
“God is interested in this entity called Nigeria. Most times, we live dangerously, but He always pulls us back from the edge of the brink. Those who hate the President for no just cause, who wish evil for their own country, are just injuring their own souls. They will fail las las, and become gentle by force,” Adesina concluded.